Arkadij Naiditsch takes President's Cup in Baku

5/12/2007 – Germany's top grandmaster Arkadij Naiditsch took the strong open in Baku, half a point clear of the field with 12 players rated 2600 or higher. Malakhatko, van Wely and Fedorov shared places 2-4, while the places 5-14 included names like Nigel Short and Vadim Milov. We bring you the games and results, as well as another batch of great pictures.

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The II International President’s Cup devoted to Azerbaijan’s prominent
politician and late President Heydar Aliyev took place from 2nd May to 12th
May 2007 in Baku. The tournament, which had $50,000 guaranteed prize fund and
gifts for winners, included three sections: the Children’s Section, with
age limit 14 years old, the Open Tournament and the Veteran Players’ Section
with players over 60 years old. In the Open Tournament, the winner of the first
place will get $5,000 and the second place $4,000.

The event had an exciting finish. In round eight the clear leader (almost from
the start) Vadim Milov, was brought crashing down by the top seed Nigel Short,
playing with the black pieces. After round eight the following players were
in the lead, with more or less high aspirations for a first place:

Rnk

Title

Name

Elo

Pts

1

GM

Short, Nigel D

2691

6.5

2

GM

Guseinov, Gadir

2586

6.5

3

GM

Malakhatko, Vadim

2598

6.5

4

GM

Naiditsch, Arkadij

2654

6.5

5

GM

Mamedov, Nidjat

2547

6

6

GM

Savchenko, Stanislav

2545

6

7

GM

Milov, Vadim

2675

6

8

GM

Van Wely, Loek

2674

6

9

GM

Balogh, Csaba

2617

6

10

GM

Fedorov, Alexei

2611

6

11

-

Morchiashvili, Bachana

2396

6

12

WGM

Mamedjarova, Zeinab

2354

6

In round nine it was Nigel's turn to taste bitter defeat with white, when he
lost an 88-move game (that finished in a Q vs R+P endgame) to Arkadij Naiditsch,
who had won his last four games in succession. In fact Naiditsch played only
one undecided game in this tournament. His score was +7 =1 –1 and the
rating perfomance close to 2700.

The winner: Arkadij Naiditsch, half a point clear of the field

Keeping an eye on Nigel: visiting GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (left) watches
the round six game

Picture Gallery

The above photos are by Farid Khayrulin of "FGF Digital STUDIO",
who has published a large number of excellent images from the President's Cup
on the official web site.
We bring you a few more, of lesser known players, to give you an impression
of the atmosphere at this event in Baku.

Many thanks to Farid Khayrulin for the great work and these remarkable
portraits!

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!